CCS points users of major expiring frameworks towards G-Cloud

Vehicles catering for digital delivery of driving theory tests and managed email services for central government - worth a cumulative £750m-plus - will not be replaced

G-Cloud 9 launched in May with a total of 2,847 suppliers Credit: Fotolia

Users of two soon-to-expire frameworks worth a cumulative total of more than £750m are being directed towards G-Cloud, the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has said.

In its monthly update, CCS today announced that bodies currently using the Computer-Based Testing Services vehicle should look to G-Cloud when the deal expires on 17 October. The framework, which has a spending pot of up to £400m was primarily launched to find a company which could provide digital service for the roughly 1.7m people in the UK who sit the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s driving theory test each year.

The framework also came with a requirement to digitally deliver an estimated annual total of 400,000 literacy, numeracy, and computer skills tests on behalf of the Department for Education.

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The deal, which commenced its scheduled four-year term on 18 October 2013, picked learndirect Limited as its sole supplier. The Sheffield-based learning services provider is not on G-Cloud 9, the latest iteration of the government’s flagship cloud framework, which went live in May. The new agreement features a total of 2,847 suppliers across three lots: Cloud Hosting; Cloud Software; and Cloud Support.

The move to push users of the testing services framework towards G-Cloud follows similar guidance from CCS in its July update in regards to the Managed eMail Framework, which expires later this month.

The vehicle, which came with a budget of £350m, was put in place in 2014 for an initial term of two years. Its remit was to find suppliers to deliver managed email services to central government departments and their arm’s-length bodies, non-departmental public bodies, NHS organisations, and local authorities.

The managed email contract was split into three lots, with same four suppliers being appointed to each: BT; Accenture; General Dynamics; and CSC. The first three of these are on G-Cloud 9, although the latter is not.

Since the first iteration of G-Cloud was launched in 2012, a total of about £1.7bn has been spent through the various frameworks, as of November 2016. Monthly G-Cloud spending has reached as high as £71.6m, a figure achieved in August of last year.